A Change of Heart

Chicago, you’ve done it once again. Just as we thought we’d have to wait until next winter for a proper snowstorm, you proved us wrong.  Walking into my office today, I felt as if I had walked out of a snow globe and into reality. A snow sprinkled jacket, wet hair, sloshy boots…yep, Chicago you showed your true colors this morning. Classy.

As I walked the mile and half to work this morning, it hit me how ready I am for a change in scene.  You’re probably thinking, “What was this girl thinking walking to work? Couldn’t she just catch a cab?” Or, if you are my mom reading this, you’re saying “if only she had listened to me four weeks ago when I told her to buy a CTA bus pass.” My response to that: buses and cabs are not for the “regulars.” 

I’d like to think I’ve become a “local” in the city.  Storming out of Union Station and brisk walking with the same crowd has become routine since this past May.  Every morning I see the same man, with his large coffee and breakfast sandwich from Corner Bakery, to my left and a woman, having stepped out of Vogue in her four inch black Stilettos approaching me as I walk down Wacker Drive (except today her Stilettos were replaced with fashionable boots). Opting out for a more comfortable mode of transportation would prevent me from experiencing Chicago at its finest:

-- being greeted by the Chicago Tribune man in the morning, “Happy Tuesday young lady”,

-- turning the corner to the same homeless man, who no longer asks me for spare change, but reminds me to watch my step as I hurry to work and smile as I do so,

-- watching locals slip left and right, sometimes even wiping out, only to have fellow locals help them up and ask if they’re okay,

--annoying city drivers as I wait until the final seven seconds to cross a main street, like a typical pedestrian.

These are the simple pleasures of Chicago, of home, that I have come to love and appreciate.  BUT, I am ready for a change.  With seven days until take off, I am sensing a change of heart.  As the days move closer to January 18^th, my anticipation to move to Spain grows more and more. 

For 17 weeks I will be studying and interning in beautiful Sevilla, in southern Spain.  Ninety other students and I will be dispersed around the city, in dorms, apartments and with gracious Sevillanos who have opened up their homes to us.  I have chosen to live with a family to improve my Spanish fluency.  My goal, over these 119 days or so, is to make Sevilla my new home…to become a local. I foresee many language mishaps, getting lost in transit and being gawked at, but I hope these instances will make me stronger and transform me into something more than just a four-month tourist.

I survived Chicago. I hope to say the same about Sevilla.